Close on 5,000 tickets for FAI

AS THE song says: better than they expected but not as good as they’d hoped.

The FAI had asked the Georgian Football Federation for 6,500 tickets for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier in Mainz but the GFF came back with an offer of 4,850 — which, nevertheless, is still considerably more than the 10% of stadium capacity that is the norm in international games.

Under yesterday’s agreement between the two associations, Georgian fans will be allocated 2,500 seats in the Bruchwegstadion — which has a capacity of 10,000 seats — while the remaining seats in the stadium will be allocated to German spectators.